Twice as many fighters in 1955 than today?

[Kalan]

Just as I figured... when you put cold hard facts forward -- as I did above -- all the posters peddling generational bias disappear like roaches racing for an exit

[Kalan]

Using the BoxRec website, one can find how many recorded events (essentially professional boxing shows) took place in given country each year. The following is the number of recorded events that took place in the United States during selected years:

1908- 1,631
1916- 3,295
1926- 5,356
1929- 6,952
1939- 3,028
1948- 3,135
1955- 1,223
1960- 754
1967- 703
1980- 930
2015- 617
2016- 623

Based on such information, one has to conclude that the amount of professional boxing activity decreased substantially in the United States since the 1910s. Also keep in mind that there may be a lot of unrecorded American professional boxing shows that took place during the first half of the 20th Century while there are few, if any, such American shows of recent vintage. Societal change and the presence of television resulted in a dramatic decrease in the number of professional boxing shows and clubs during a period of fifteen years after World War II.

- Chuck Johnston

So the 'nure that you're trying to spread is that quantity equals quality??? ... You're implying that Boxing peaked in 1929 which had roughly 10 X as many shows as 1967..and 6 times as many shows as in 1955.. That's very nice, but as I said above about the 1950's you have to look at quality.. Were there a lot of quality young Heavyweights when Marciano was champ??? NO!!

The Heavyweights challengers of the 1920's weren't much better.. There were NO Heavyweight Championship Fights in 1922.. 1924.. 1925 and 1929 -- Dempsey defended the title against 3 real Heavyweights in 7 years.. Miske, Brennan, and Firpo — not an impressive lot.. I concede Tunney was an outstanding Boxer, but he retired after defending against Dempsey and the pedestrian Tom Heeney -- a fight Tex Rickard lost his shirt on.

Just as I figured... when you put cold hard facts forward -- as I did above -- all the posters peddling generational bias disappear like roaches racing for an exit

[Ambling Alp II]

Using the BoxRec website, one can find how many recorded events (essentially professional boxing shows) took place in given country each year. The following is the number of recorded events that took place in the United States during selected years:

1908- 1,631
1916- 3,295
1926- 5,356
1929- 6,952
1939- 3,028
1948- 3,135
1955- 1,223
1960- 754
1967- 703
1980- 930
2015- 617
2016- 623

Based on such information, one has to conclude that the amount of professional boxing activity decreased substantially in the United States since the 1910s. Also keep in mind that there may be a lot of unrecorded American professional boxing shows that took place during the first half of the 20th Century while there are few, if any, such American shows of recent vintage. Societal change and the presence of television resulted in a dramatic decrease in the number of professional boxing shows and clubs during a period of fifteen years after World War II.

- Chuck Johnston

Thanks for looking that up, Chuck!

[jaclem3]

kalan is good with statistics, as he proves here. if you want to compare the number of fighters in any era, just look at the men who fought marciano and multiply or divide from there.

[Kalan]

I'm not going to waste my time trying to count the number of boxing promotions that happened in any given year in the US... That's for people who want to pretend Heavyweights, or any fighters, were better in the 20's and the early 50's than the guys who are around today.. Let's just admit that the number of shows in the United States bares no relationship to the level of boxing talent that's available around the world. The growth of the sport globally has been phenomenal in the last 25 years.

A huge slice of the planet has professional boxing today were the concept didn't even exist prior to 1990 -- only 26 years ago... There're roughly 5 times as many professional boxers in the world today as there were in 1974, if Ring Magazine's compilation from that year is correct.

It was either 1973 or '74 when Ring Magazine did a comprehensive rating of all professional boxers and ended up with over 4 thousand of them who ever had professional fights and were active... Maybe somebody has the issue around that time where Ring did the global ranking.. Boxrec ranks almost 22 thousand boxers today.

[Chuck1052]

What if the professional boxers of the present time were generally far less active that their counterparts of 1929 or 1955? If that turns out to true, it is relatively meaningless if there were just as many pro boxers at the present time as there were sixty or ninety years ago.

- Chuck Johnston

[Kalan]

What if the professional boxers of the present time were generally far less active that their counterparts of 1929 or 1955? If that turns out to true, it is relatively meaningless if there were just as many pro boxers at the present time as there were sixty or ninety years ago.

- Chuck Johnston

There's a lot more boxers today -- because the world population is quadruple that of 90 years ago... and triple what it was 60 years ago... Boxing is global today.. And activity level doesn't mean anything to me because Joe Frazier had 37 fights... Jim Jeffries had 24 fghts... Jim Corbett had 20 fights.. Ingemar Johansson fought in the 1950's and had only 28 fights.. Boxrec ranks Ingo well ahead of Carlos Zarate -- who had 70 fights winning his first 52 fights -- 51 by KO.. Zarate was a very good puncher and vey good boxer.. Johansson was a good puncher but not a skillful boxer to say the least.. He was an accident looking for a place to happen.

But for me it's not how busy you are or the number of fights you have.. Jimmy Wilde padded his record with a ton of 2nd raters.. So did Ray Robinson.. Just padding it up with scores of creampuffs and losing title fights doesn't tell me you were the best ever.. If you're fighting fewer fights today you're fighting more select competition.. and the preparation for each fight is a lot more intense.. I don't see a lot of holes in the top fighters today as compared to 60 years ago.. From what I see, they're generally bigger, stronger, faster, and more skilled in every division.. Of course there's exceptions to be sure.. Chris Eubank is as tall as Robinson, but look how much bigger and stronger he is.. Obviously he won't be easy for GGG.

[AntonS]

Like it or not, serious boxing is as good as farked, due to major bodies resorting sub titles to earn a quid. WBC & WBA are nothing more than family business, and as such can do anything they like.

[Bundana]

These kind of discussions (number of fights/fighters from different eras) pop up on every boxing site from time to time.

Wouldn't it be great, is someone at BoxRec could release the number of active boxers (like they have with the number of fights) each year? Yeah, I know, a lot of old boxers from way back are missing from their database... but at least such numbers (even if not 100% correct) would most likely give us an idea of a general trend over time.

For eksample: When BoxRec today lists several times as many active boxers for 2016, than Ring Magazine (according to Kalan) thought there were back in the '70s... is that something that reflects reality? Or can we not rely on this information? I have no doubt, there are more boxers, world wide, today than 40-50 years ago... but 5 times as many? Sounds a bit too much, imo... but this is where BoxRec's numbers would be a big help!

[elmersalsa]

I know one thing: There are more world champions today than in 1955.
Number of champions in 1955: 8
Number of champions in 2016: 68

I guess we are in better times.

[Kalan]

elmersalsa... A boxer today, no matter how brilliant he is, can do nothing about top fighters running from him because there's so many World Championship Belts... All he can do is chase and chase and chase like Golovkin has done for 7 years... Just about everyone knows he's the best Middleweight.

It's pretty obvious guys like Lomachenko, Golovkin, Crawford, Russell, Joshua, and Usyk are the best fighters at their respective weights... Even though they don't have all the titles -- because in many divisions there's a lot of ducking going on leaving the dominant boxer isolated.. Boxers have to deal with the way Boxing is today, not the way they would love it to be.. Jim Norris was a problem in the 1950's.. But Boxing got after him and his International Boxing Club was disbanded by the courts.. Norris died of a heart attack in his 50's to everyone's pleasure.. His net worth was over a quarter billion.

No one person can fix the mess that is Professional Boxing today... It will require cooperation by promoters and a grass roots rebellion by fans.

[jaclem3]

if sugar ray robinson had fought 20 times and kayoed 17 of them, all taller than he, he'd be a cinch to go into the HOF by unanimous vote....as long as none of his fights were before 2007....

[Kalan]

He'd get in, even if all 20 were all shorter than him... had 400 losses... and he fought them all before 1941 expired.

[Bundana]

I wouldn't be surprised if there were twice as many professional fighters in 1955 than at the present time. In my opinion, there were a tremendous number of professional boxing shows taking place during the Twentieth Century up to 1955, but far fewer afterwards.

- Chuck Johnston

Instead of just making wild guesses about this, why not reveal how many boxers in BoxRec's database were active in 1955? Why do you (and other BoxRec editors) refuse to do this?

On the first day of this year, BoxRec listed 21.803 male boxers, who had been active during 2016. Why not tell us, how this compares to how many you have for 1955? How hard can it be? Yeah, I know... we can't be sure how many fights are missing from back then. But all the same, it would be nice to have some actual numbers to discuss - even though they may not be 100% (or even close to that!) correct. It would be interesting to know, if we're talking in the neighborhood of, say, 10.000 or 40.000!

[Kalan]

So, since 2008 we have seen a 50% increase of active fighters - and a doubling since the start of the century (if we are to believe the Boxing Digest numbers). Very interesting!

I think don't think the numbers provided by Boxing Digest should be relied on. I can imagine that they were able to come up with a reliable figure for the U.S. and likely Europe / Australia, but outside of that I think it's just an educated guess. As far as Boxrec is concerned, the database is continuously being updated with 'older' fights - we might simply be more complete for 2015 than we are for 2008 (yet).

In general, I don't think are as many professional fighters nowadays as there were in the 1950s, and there were nowhere near as many in the 1950s as there were in the 1920s.

That is not true... Willard went 4 years without facing a single challenger -- and there were no hoots and calls for Willard to face anyone util Dempsey came along and made a massive name for himself. Willard was a pathetically inept and out-of-shape version of a "Heavyweight Champion" in the Dempsey slaughter.. In the 1920's Dempsey defended successfully against teeny little challengers Carpentier and Gibbons... 2 small Heavyweights... and 1 good sized but extremely crude challenger.. Dempsey took over 2 years off following the Carpentier fight and over 3 years off following the Firpo fight.. You don't do that if there's a dynamic and skilled Heavyweight Challenger on the scene.

Where was the competition if there were so many boxers??? Tunney was a dominant boxer for sure, but he retired because there were no competitors for him... Tunney addressed his future (quoting Boxrec.com) "There is no contender at the present time who appears capable of attracting real public interest," he said. "If there were I might delay my retirement long enough to face him in the ring, but it looks as if it might take two or three years before a dangerous opponent is developed. That is too long to stand and wait." ... With good numbers you DO get competition. With terrible numbers you DON'T

People forget that Boxing was outlawed in many states in the early 20th Century.. Boxers sometimes got thrown in jail for plying their craft.. A Heavyweight as talented as Dempsey often begged for food and rode the rails... If the lucrative Heavyweight Division was that bad off Boxing was in the slumps... Today Boxing is a massively growing global sport with Olympians from 10 times as many countries... That's why there's a explosion of skilled boxers.

[Caractacus]

c'mon man, Archie Moore was only 38 years old when he fought Rocky Marciano.
Born December 1916 and their fight was Septemember 1955 (well you do the math).
also Archie Moore had another 42 professional fights after the fight with Marciano up until 1963.

[Kalan]

That's perfectly okay... That just proves that Archie was aging when he fought Rocky... and he was only a Light Heavyweight... and he decked Rocky solidly... and he hammered Rocky with a lot of punches... and he fought Floyd Patterson the following year -- and couldn't do crap to him...

[Bundana]

What if the professional boxers of the present time were generally far less active that their counterparts of 1929 or 1955? If that turns out to true, it is relatively meaningless if there were just as many pro boxers at the present time as there were sixty or ninety years ago.

- Chuck Johnston

Now there's another interesting question!

I think, we would probably all agree, that today's boxers aren't nearly as active (fights per year) as the oldtimers. I would certainly be surprised, if evidence to the contrary could be presented! But, as with everybody else, I only have this gut feeling telling me, that it likely is so - no hard facts to hang my hat on.

But again, why do we even have to guess/speculate about this, when the numbers are right there in BoxRec's database? I mean, in their latest yearly update they list 14.461 fights for 1955... and the number of boxers who participated in those fights, can of course also be found in the database. So why not give us the number of active boxers for the year 1955, so we can work out how many fights boxers had (on average) back then? Then we could compare that with the numbers for today, or 1929 - or any other period we would like to examine. How can you not be interested in getting some factual numbers on the table?

[Kalan]

Because a boxer had more fights doesn't mean they were better... Joe Frazier only had 37 fights... He didn't have that many amateur fights and he reached his peak before he ever had 30 fights... Ray Leonard only had 40 pro fights... He didn't believe in having a lot of fights.. "The more fights you have, stands to reason, the more head punches you're going to take.. In the end you're going to be looking for work in other occupations.. So that may not be smart."

[Ambling Alp II]

Nobody said that if one fighter had more fights than another that he must have been better.
There used to be more boxers long ago. That is simply the truth.

Leonard was a very active fighter until his eye injuries. He had 28 fights in his first three years. 9 were against top 10 fighters or the champion.
There is a happy medium for an individual fighter as to how much he should fight. You fight too often and the wear and tear can shorten your career if you have too many tough fights.

On the other hand, you don't learn enough coming up if you don't have the experience of a lot of fights. (You also need some fights against opponents who aren't just punching bags. Which has been a huge problem the last 30 years or so. Very few fighters are tested after their first 4-5 years of fighting. The contenders with pretty records avoid each other because they know with 4 "governing bodies" they will get a WBS title shot if they bide their time)

You can also get rusty if you don't fight enough.

But yes, there used to be many more boxing shows than there are now. New York City used to have several a week. Other major cities that abandoned boxing long ago, used to have cards frequently.
It's simply nowhere as near as popular sport as it once was.

[Kalan]

You train rust away... Leonard didn't fight for 3 years before he fought his first fight at Middleweight. Vitali didn't fight for 4 years before he dominated 30-1 Sam Peter to win the only Heavyweight TItle his brother didn't own. They weren't rusty because they were trained to the minute.

As far as boxers avoiding each other??? The best boxers in each division don't do that... Lomachenko, Russell, Spence, Crawford, Kovalev, Usyk, Joshua, Golovkin and every boxer who's the best at their weight will take on anyone in their division for a fair shake of the money.

But it's a fair point that today fighters can avoid the best by pricing themselves out and other tactics like hiding behind their org and promoter... Khan, Bradley, Pacquiao, and Maidana fought anybody but Thrurman, Brook, or Porter for years -- and now Khan, Bradley, and Pacquiao wouldn't dream of fighting Spence.

[Ambling Alp II]

To a certain degree if you train hard it helps with rust. However, it helps if you have actually been in active. Leonard would have looked even better had he been fighting more often.

There are far less bouts between top 10 fighters than there used to be. Fighters can say they will take on anyone but the bottom line is that seldom happens.
I'm not just talking about big showdowns. You used to have fights where the #6 contender takes on the #7 contender or something like that. Fighters used to usually be more tested before they ever got a title shot.
How often do fights happen with two of the top 10 fighters in a weight class with no title at stake? Used to be routine. Now it almost never happens.

[Kalan]

That NEVER happened routinely.... You're idealizing things that never happened.. After Robinson won the Middleweight Title from Jake LaMotta, he fought 8 cherry picked opponents to pad his record in the next 4 months... Just like he'd been doing his whole career.. Then he fought his first Middleweight Title Defense against a better opponent and lost to Turpin... One of the cream-puffs he fought even had more losses than wins.

[Ambling Alp II]

Ray Robinson, seriously? Thats your example? He had many fights in his career against top 10 opponents. He had 5 fights alone against LaMotta that wren't even for a title. Almost for sure he had more than anyone.
Yes there used to be more fights between contenders. No need to argue basic facts.

[Kalan]

Of course he had 6 fights with LaMotta...who he could easily beat because he was a punching bag with almost no defense..

How many fights did he have with Ralph Jones??? ONE!!! ... And since Jones beat the crap out of Robinson he never wanted to fight him again... How many fights did he have with Charley Burley and Archie Moore??? NONE!!! The idea that Robinson was willing to put his ass on the line against brilliant boxing hard punchers like Burley and Moore is a myth.. Ralph Jones wasn't that brilliant.. He lost 5 fights in a row before he beat the crap out of Robinson -- but no rematch wanted.